This just in from the frontiers of evolutionary biology: Women like a man with moves. And not just any moves. Women like a man who can nod his head; twist his torso; and especially, shake a leg. Actually. Shake. A. Leg. The faster, the better, and the right one specifically. Or so reports Christopher Ingraham in the Washington Post’s Wonkblog.

The researchers wired-up nineteen men with motion sensors, asked them to dance for 30 seconds to a steady drum beat, filmed them from 12 camera angles, and converted their performances into animations featuring blank-faced, empty-crotched, naked blue avatars.

The idea was to strip the guys of any looks, cues, or socioeconomic clues–like clothing and a, um, package–that might distract female subjects from men’s actual motions. The women viewed the resulting animations and rated the dancing dummies on a standard seven-point scale from “extremely bad dancer” to “extremely good dancer.” The results were statistically sliced and diced to determine what women really want.

In case you haven’t noticed, this is pumpkin season in America. I don’t mean the big orange gourds that grow on sprawling vines. I mean the flavor, which has become ub-everywhere-iquitous from October through the first of December, when gingerbread vies for its own shot at number one.